Chapter 3 Flashcards
Hypoxia
Lack of dissolved oxygen
Nutrients
Elements and compounds that organisms consumer and are essential for survival
Eutrophication
Process of nutrient over-enrichment in water with hypoxia
System
A network of relationships among parts, elements, or components that interact with and influence each other through the exchange of energy, matter, or info.
Cycles
Flows of chemical elements and compounds that facilitate environmental processes, regulate climate and support life.
Open systems
Receive inputs of energy and matter, and produce outputs of both.
Closed systems
Receive inputs and produce outputs of energy, but not matter. Matter cycles among the system but doesn’t leave or enter it.
Feedback loops
When a system’s output serves as an input to that same system.
- Negative feedback: the outputs from a system become inputs to another system, moving that system in an opposite direction. Here, input and output kind of neutralize each other’s effects, stabilizing the system.
- Positive feedback: rather than stabilizing a system, they drive it further toward one extreme or another. They can alter systems to a great extent. They are rare, but common in natural systems that were altered by human impact.
Dynamic equilibrium
when processes within a system move in opposing directions at equivalent rates so that their effects balance out.
Homeostasis
Tendency of a system to maintain/regulate their internal conditions.
What are the characteristics of homeostatic systems?
- Resistance: the strength of the system’s tendency to remain constant (strength to resist disturbance).
- Resilience: the measure of how fast the system will return to its original state once it has been disturbed.
Emergent properties
Characteristics that are not evident in individual components alone, they arise from the interaction of component parts.
Geosphere
Rock and sediment of the solid earth.
Atmosphere
Thin envelop of gases, water droplets, and dust particles that surrounds our planet.
Hydrosphere
All the water that resides in surface water bodies.
Cryosphere
All the frozen parts of the hydrosphere.
Biosphere
Consists of all the planet’s living organisms, and recently deceased and decaying organic matter
Anthroposphere
The parts of the earth system that are modified by humans or constructed for human use.
Ecosystem
An ecosystem consists of all organisms and non-living entities that occur and interact in a particular area at the same time.
Ecology
Ecology is the discipline that deals with the abundance and distribution of organisms, the interactions among them and their interactions with the abiotic environment.
Ecosystem ecology
Ecosystem ecology refers to the study of energy and material flows among living and non-living components of systems. They study the structure of ecosystems and the functional processes of ecosystems.
Biomass
Organic material that makes up living organisms.
Gross primary production (GPP)
The overall conversion of solar energy into chemical energy by autotrophs (how much photosynthesis is happening).
Net primary production (NPP)
- The energy that remains after respiration that goes toward accumulating biomass
How is NPP measured
NPP = GPP - respiration by autotrophs
Model
A model is a simplified representation of a complex natural process, designed to help us understand how the process occurs and to make predictions.
Ecotones
Transitional zones where 2 ecosystems meet and interact.
What do landscape ecologists study?
They study how landscape structure affects the abundance, distribution, and interaction of organisms.
Geographic information systems (GIS)
Consists of computer software that takes many types of data and combines them on a common set of geographical coordinates.
